


Dream Stuff

by lferion



Category: 5000 Fingers of Dr. T (1953)
Genre: Counted Word Fic, Dreams, F/M, Lyric Inspired, M/M, Multi, Structured Form, Threesome - F/M/M, Wordplay, Yuletide, Yuletide 2010, liminal space
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-12-14
Updated: 2010-12-14
Packaged: 2017-10-13 16:15:25
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,221
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/139218
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lferion/pseuds/lferion
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Yet we could keep it from drifting, if we’d only dare</p>
            </blockquote>





	Dream Stuff

**Author's Note:**

  * For [cnoocy](https://archiveofourown.org/users/cnoocy/gifts).



> My thanks, as always, to A, M and I, (names to be put in after the reveal) for hand-holding and encouragement. Also to Cnoocy, for the opportunity to write this!
> 
> YouTube versions of the songs referred to in this story —  
> Dream Stuff: (Not finding a vid of this one, will edit in link if I do)  
> Dungeon Elevator: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pHVRxzvkJao  
> Dressing Song (Do Mi Do Duds): http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rcwAymlCB1k  
> Hypnotic Duel: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TXRK_GIy1yE  
> Get Together Weather: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VcYTilauRLo  
> Ten Happy Fingers: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p2_Lo7sMeZM
> 
> The soundtrack can be found on iTunes, and an extended 3-disk set with all the music, including the cut 3rd Floor verse of the Dungeon Elevator song and instrumental & alternate versions can be found here on Screen Archives Entertainment: http://www.screenarchives.com/title_detail.cfm/ID/14536/THE-5000-FINGERS-OF-DR-T-/

* * *

  
_Dream stuff, dream stuff  
Funny thing about this dream stuff  
First it’s there, then no where._   


  


* * *

  


\- Dungeon Elevator -

The boy dreamed: fantastical instruments and amazing, astonishing men playing them, played by them, chained too and within them; and music the unbroken, unbreakable connection that held all of them captive, laboring endlessly at play, served and serviced. Plucked and pounded, bowed and drawn, rung and wrung and shaken to the soul.

The man dreamed as well, the same shapes and compulsions, the same indomitable music, the same men, faceless and nameless and beautiful. There were no women in his dreams, no longer any adults or people he knew, and he woke from those dreams aching and hard. Woke yearning for something he had no words for, only half-glimpsed images, figures that writhed within the music, that moved in the corners of the the dungeon of his childhood imagination. Yearned for the promise that set his heart pounding behind his breastbone, that vibrated hard and hot in his belly, his throat, places he had no names for whenever that elevator appeared in the dream, and the deep voice of the man who worked it resonated in his bones.

***

The man at the door looks nothing like the elevator operator of his imagination and yet he looks precisely like, sleek and powerful, dark and smiling. Music pours from the entrance, glorious and rich, calling him to enter, to take up his chains and celebrate them.

* * *

  
_Dream stuff, dream stuff  
Ever fleeting, ever shifting_   


  


* * *

\- Dressing Song -

The boy dreamed: clothes ridiculous and simple, improbable and practical, accessories and furbelows constructed from the Sears Catalog and glimpses of his mother’s wardrobe, family photographs (Great-uncles Judson and Whitney not the least) and imagination. The very words were mysteries: placket and pelisse, crinoline and marabou and organdy sleeves, as mysterious and unimportant as what the clothes might cover. Surface was all. The umbrella shirt is always belled with air and at the end of up floats down.

The man dreamed as well, the textures and colors and the way cloth and thread, cut and shape and tailoring hid or revealed the form beneath, a mystery desired, a wrapping, not a wall, the skin and soul meaning more than any stripe or solid, froth of voile or apron made of hide. The placket was the point of pants, and the treasure underneath. Some linings matched the outsides, others not. In the depths of the wardrobe more revealing things, unwrapped to his rapt gaze - the bind and bite of leather, the stinging song of rope, and the slide of silk on skin, compelling desire and response.

***

He choses his clothes with care: mating plumage, work-a-day disguise, party clothes and play accessories, the formal black that hides the maker (the monster, the man) and lets the music shine out like searchlights. Always impeccable, outside and in.

* * *

  
_Yet we could keep it from drifting  
If we’d only dare._   


  


* * *

\- Hypnotic Duel -

The conductor dreamed: five hundred players under his baton, musicians skilled and moving to his music, his command; each with perfect posture, clean-struck notes, dedication to the call of keys and strings and hammers sounding strong. Each but an extension of his will, a vehicle, an echo of himself. Then but one, an Other, independent, not of him and defying his direction, calling him to dance, to match his wit and will and sovereign strength against his own untutored skill.

The man dreamed as well: confronted, challenged by a virile force unbowed and undismayed by his armor of authority, who can see past the mask of cold indifference to aught but his own art to view the man, and not the mechanism. A back and forth exchange, lead first, then follow in a dance that wakens long denied desire. Ravished, undressed, stripped of veils and smoke and subtle words to stand revealed as needy flesh, then to meet and match that other form with fervor and delight. An opposite, an assonance, a complement, and all beneath the eyes of one who holds both in her heart, with love and understanding.

***

Fishing he leaves to August and the boy; he husbands his forces while they are gone, composes elegant moves to apply later in indelicate engagement. Music is his master then, and Heloise both light-bringer and friend.

* * *

  
_Grasp that world you’ve been to  
Carry it right in to  
Bright blue day_   


  


* * *

\- Get Together Weather -

The plumber dreamed: mazy corridors of pipes and ducts and impossible machines, pickle juice dispensers and five hundred sinks to plumb. Cartoon carts of money, a welder’s fancy of a scrollwork boudoir and a mother locked within. Free the lock, and then — Grassy carpet, dulcet tones, effervescent and exhilarating contrasts to the dour work-day grind, spun into a yodeling, gargling, trilling dance, bipping, and bouncing and entirely absurd.

The man dreamed as well: a fantasy of frolic, both desires of his heart and mind and body met and given form - the rainbow and the storm. He would wrestle with that storm in sunlight, embrace the rainbow's curves in rain, schneep and schnup and schtup with both, single and together, precipitate and steady, high pressure and low, whirlwind, blizzard, heatwave and calm. A one to plumb his depths, etch through copper cladding, master valve and stopcock and the art of brazing joins - heat applied to metal, until silver liquid shows, where pipe fits pipe inserted tight and hard. An other to draw the music out to glitter and grow under a cloud-castle sky, cooing and billing and bright.

***

The batchelor party is both private and exclusive, an exploration of fluid mechanics; the honeymoon is a delight of difference, shimmering, shivering, warm as summer rain. Both forecast an all together interesting future, three hearts blooming.

* * *

  
_Feel it, seal it, don’t let anybody steal it  
Most of all keep any doubt away  
Then you can make it stay_   


  


* * *

\- Ten Happy Fingers -

The mother dreamed: small fingers on large keys, pillows on a piano stool spun up to its top, sighs of put-upon and restless little boy, music emerging because of, despite, resistance to the task. He’s bigger now, the distractions of dog and ball and sun and running all the more enticing, yet still there is music coursing about him, through him, a soundtrack to the landscape of imagination that they share. Whitney and Judson watch over him too, brothers of the heart, not blood, and bound by more than love of music.

The woman dreamed as well: long, slender-strong fingers teaching broader ones to play other notes on an instrument of flesh; fastidious hands made to curl and clench and thread through thick, dark hair as hands and mouth unfazed by fluid plumbed depths to draw it out, and darker, longer hair slides along a pillow to music of moans and gasps, wet and wanton noises. Angular limbs and rounded draw her in, make space for her within their ecstasy, making happiness threefold, _pas de deux_ now _pas de trois_.

***

The house is demure on the tree-lined street, where it is common knowledge that the piano teacher rents rooms from the veteran’s widow and her second husband, her son in college now. No one but themselves need know that the broad new bed sleeps three.

* * *

  
_Dream stuff, dream stuff  
Funny thing about this dream stuff  
First it’s there, then now here._   


  


* * *

**Author's Note:**

> Lyrics:
> 
> Elevator Song
> 
> FIRST FLOOR DUNGEON  
> Assorted simple tortures.  
> Molten lead, chopping blocks  
> And hot boiling oil.
> 
> SECOND FLOOR DUNGEON  
> Jewelry department.  
> Leg chains, ankle chains,  
> Neck chains, wrist chains, thumb screws  
> And nooses of the very finest rope.
> 
> THIRD FLOOR DUNGEON  
> Household appliances.  
> Spike-beds, electric-chairs,  
> Gas chambers, roasting pots  
> And scalping devices
> 
> BASEMENT DUNGEON--  
> EVERYBODY OUT.
> 
> Dressing Song
> 
> Come on and dress me, dress me, dress me, in my finest array!  
> Cause just in case you haven't heard  
> Today is do-mi-do day!
> 
> Dress me in my silver garters, dress me in my diamond studs  
> Cause I'm going do-mi-do-ing in my do-mi-do duds!  
> I want my undulating undies with the maribou frills!  
> I want my beautiful bolero with the porcupine quills!  
> I want my purple nylon girdle with the orange blossom buds  
> Cause I'm going do-mi-do-ing in my do-mi-do duds!
> 
> Come on and dress me! dress me! dress me!  
> In my peek-a-boo blouse  
> With the lovely inner lining made of Chesapeake mouse!  
> I want my polka-dotted dickie with the crinolin fringe  
> For I'm going do-mi-do-ing on a do-mi-do binge!
> 
> I want my lavender spats and in addition to them  
> I want my honey-colored gosset with the herring bone hem  
> I want my softest little jacket made of watermelon suede  
> And my long persimmon placket with the platinum braid  
> I want my leg of mutton sleeves and in addition to those  
> I want my cutie chamois booties with the leopard skin bows  
> I want my pink brocaded bodice with the floofy fuzzy ruffs  
> And my gorgeous bright blue bloomers  
> With the monkey feather cuffs  
> I want my organdy snood and in addition to that  
> I want my chiffon Mother Hubbard lined with Hudson Bay rat  
> Dress me up from top to bottom, dress me up from tip to toe  
> Dress me up in silk and spinach for today is do-mi-do day!  
> DO-MI-DO DAY!
> 
> So come and dress me in the blossoms of a million pink trees!  
> Come on and dress me up in liverwurst! and camembert cheese!  
> Come on and dress me up in pretzels, dress me up in bock beer suds! Cause I'm gooooo-ing  
> \--do-mi-dooooooooo-ing--  
> in my do-mi-do duds!
> 
> Get Together Weather
> 
> Come on it's time we got together  
> Cause it's get together weather  
> And in get together weather  
> Together is just what we've got to get!
> 
> Come on the weather man's insisting  
> This is weather beyond resisting  
> This is get together weather  
> And together is just what we've got to get!
> 
> What wonderful weather to go on an outing!  
> What wonderful weather to run around shouting!  
> What wonderful weather for love to be sprouting!  
> It's mighty fine weather, I hope that it stays!
> 
> What glorious weather for zipping and zooming!  
> What glorious weather for hearts to be blooming!  
> What glorious weather briding and grooming!  
> It's mighty fine weather we're having these days!
> 
> Come on the weather man's reporting  
> That the weather's right for sporting  
> And for love and assorted courting  
> Together is just what we’ve got to get!
> 
> What marvelous weather for cooing and billing  
> For yodeling, warbling, gargling, trilling  
> What marvelous weather for dally down dilling!  
> What marvelous weather, hey hey what a day!
> 
> What fabulous weather for loping and leaping!  
> What fabulous weather for bipping and beeping!  
> For shnipping and shnapping, snooping and shneeping!  
> What fabulous weather for announcing and pouncing  
> And for b-b-b-bouncing!  
> This is get together weather  
> And together is just what we've got to get!
> 
> Ten Happy Fingers
> 
> Ten little dancing maidens, dancing all so fine!  
> Ten happy little fingers and they're mine all mine  
> They're mine, they're mine  
> Now isn't that just fine?  
> No three, not five, not seven and not nine,  
> But ten all dancing straight in line!  
> And all of them are mine, all mine.  
> Oh yes, they are mine, all mine!


End file.
